NASA officials say asteroid detection program is behind schedule

The likelihood of a massive meteor slamming into Earth is unlikely to occur anytime soon — but funding by Congress could help scientists detect future threats, National Aeronautics and Space Administration said today.

NASA leaders and administration officials told members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that most of the massive Near-Earth Objects that could possibly be a threat to human life are being tracked and pose no immediate threat. The smaller objects have proved more difficult to detect and appear in Earth’s atmosphere more frequently, but are not as harmful.

“Unfortunately, the number of undetected potential ‘city killers’ is very large,” said John Holdren, assistant to President Barack Obama for science and technology. “It’s in the 10,000 range or more.”

Meteors 140 meters or more in diameter are within the range that could destroy heavily populated urban areas. Congress has directed NASA to improve methods to be able to identify and track 90 percent of meteors in this range by 2020. A task that will likely not be achieved until 2030, using current budget estimates, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

The estimate was not “particularly reassuring” to the committee’s chairman, Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, who said he’d look into possible budgetary assistance.

Near Earth Objects have garnered a lot of attention following the February incident where a meteor unexpectedly crashed into the northern region of Russia. The Air Force was not aware of the meteor until it was headed toward Russia, said Gen. William Shelton, commander of the Air Force Space Command at the Tuesday hearing, and declined to go into specifics. A separate meteor flew past Earth the same day, one scientists had been tracking. The two incidents prompted Smith to establish the hearing.

“For all the attention and publicity the two events of February 15 received, it was still too late for us to have acted to change the course of the incoming objects. We are in the same position today and for the foreseeable future unless we take actions now that improve our means of detection,” Smith said in his opening statement.

Bolden said scientists need more telescopes located in outer space. Current ground-based technologies such as telescopes help track asteroids but can be hindered by the the night sky and weather conditions.

“Ground-based systems are great…but if you really want to find and detect asteroids and near earth objects early enough that we can do something, you want that vehicle to be in space, he said.

NASA is partnering the B612 Foundation, a non-profit organization, in a privately funded effort to launch an infrared telescope into space, funded through the Space Act Agreement. The telescope would find 100-meter sized objects or larger that could orbit close to Earth. The telescope would be able to detect objects like the one that hit Russia, which went undetected because it came from the same direction as the sun, Holdren said.

When asked, Holdren estimated strictly detection efforts could cost $100 million a year. Mitigation efforts, however, which include the president’s proposal of sending a human mission to an asteroid by 2025, could cost $2 billion between now and 2025. Shelton said costs for the Air Force Space Command could range from $200-300 million a year to improve their efforts in their spacial domain, which ranges from the geosynchronous orbit to the planet’s surface.